Tuesday, August 30, 2011

On 21st May 1991 the IndianPrime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was killed by a suicide bomber as he was speaking to an election rally in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu. Within three weeks, the Indian intelligence service concluded that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) were responsible and cited the 1987 agreement between the Indian and Sri Lankan Government, and the resulting Indian military intervention in Sri Lanka as the motive for the assassination. Following the Indian military intervention in Sri Lanka, numerous innocent Tamils were killed and countless women were raped.

Of course, there was an obvious aim behind the assassination of the prime minister. Regardless of the fact that Rajiv Ghandi and his military committed war crimes and murders during the intervention, killing is not the ultimate solution. Even though there was a strong chance for the emergence of a people’s war against the Indian government and its ‘regional expansionist mentality’, Rajiv Gandhi’s murder diverted the public opinion, as it was an act of terrorism.

However, there are other controversies, such as his wife, Sonia Gandhi, and other politicians could have been behind the murder.

In May 1992, Indian government filed charges against 41 accused in a lengthy report citing 1180 "material objects" and 1477 documents. Of the 41 accused people, 12 were dead and 26had spent many months in prison without charges.

On the 28th January 1998, all 26men and women were sentenced to death by hanging. Their individual culpability and motive was assumed on the basis of general observations.

The execution of three innocents is arranged before the 09.09.2011. Amnesty International has claimed the forthcoming execution of the three men convicted for the assassination of former Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi as “a death sentence wrongly given to innocent Tamils.”

Two Sri Lankans and an Indian national condemned for the assassination of Mr Gandhi are facing imminent execution in Vellore prison in Tamil Nadu.

The inexcusable allegations against those prisoners, such as“travelling with LTTE cadres” and “buying batteries”, show that they are innocents.

A 20-year-old woman immolated herself inside the Taluk office in Kancheepuram on Sunday evening, protestingthe death sentence presented to Santhan, Murugan and G. Perarivalan aliasArivu, convicted of plotting the 1991 assassination of the former PrimeMinister, Rajiv Gandhi.

The Indian and Sri Lankan governments are attempting to divert the attention towards the innocent accused.

Indian state terrorism is performing the genocide by evacuating and murdering indigenous people in from their own home land in their own country on behalf of corporate companies. Indian military and government participated with Sri Lankan government just to massacre more than fifty thousand innocents within three days.

Now the innocents are anticipating their death sentence. They are expecting the world’s support and help, to escape from state terrorism.

A serious ideological struggle is going on in our party now. While saying so, it does not mean that there was no ideological struggle in our party before. It perseveres in a party; sometimes it is extensive and sharp and sometimes not. Moreover, it does not always centre on only one issue; but on different issues depending on time and context. The ideological struggle in our party has now been manifested in two lines, Marxism or reformism, and it has centred on ideological, political and organisational lines. It is very much piercing and serious too.

Two-line struggle is the life of a party. It is also known as the motive force of a party. Struggle is the base of unity. Mao has stressed on transformation for a new unity to take place upon a new base. Unity is not achieved through compromise, higher level of unity is not achieved without transformation and there is no transformation in default of struggle. That is why, two-line struggle is said to be the motive force of a party.

After we entered into the peace process, the two-line struggle that had surfaced from our party’s Balaju Expanded meeting has been going on till today. In essence, the ongoing struggle is focused on ideological and political questions. However, its central expression has been in different forms depending upon time and context. From the Balaju expanded meeting to now, the two-line struggle in our party has developed through different phases, which can be mentioned in short as follows.

First, the phase of struggle against bourgeois working-style. Once our party entered into the cities after signing in the comprehensive peace agreement bourgeois working-style started to dominate in the party. Most of the leaders and cadres forgot their previous bases, the poverty-stricken countryside, rather started enjoying in big hotels, in the name of building cities a base of revolutionaries. The struggle, which was waged in Balaju meeting against the danger that the problem in working-style of that kind may become a cause to liquidate party’s revolutionary line and as a result the revolution, is noteworthy to mention here. However, the document adopted by Balaju expanded meeting was never distributed in the party to study and implement in practice. Why it happened so, is a serious issue to sum up in the days ahead.

Second, the phase of inner struggle to determine party’s new tactic. Subsequent to the first meeting of the Constituent Assembly, which declared Nepal a federal democratic republic, party’s tactic adopted by the CC meeting in Chunwang had ended. In that situation, the party must have adopted another tactic right away, but that did not happen. Party did not have any tactic almost all through a period of one year after democratic republic of Nepal was declared. In the situation when the old tactic was over and the new one was not taken up it was obvious for the party not to have any plan to go ahead except cycling around the parliamentary exercise. It was necessary for this situation to bring the ideological struggle to the fore centring on what should be the next tactic. There was a sharp and extensive two-line struggle in Kharipati Convention held on November 2008. Finally, elucidating that Nepal was still a semi-feudal and semi-colonial country and the federal democratic republic was a reactionary political system, party adopted a new tactic, People’s Federal Republic, to accomplish new democratic revolution. This tactic is still valid and is awaiting its execution.

Third, the phase of developing plans to implement the aforesaid tactic. Kharipati convention succeeded to build up party’s next tactic but failed again to put forward a concrete plan to implement it. Party didn’t bring in any tangible plan till about nine months after the convention was concluded. Later, three months long central committee meeting in August 2009 took up some important decisions. Of them the decisions, first, people’s insurrection is a must to establish People’s Federal Republic and second, four preparations and four bases are the prerequisites necessary to make people’s insurrection a success, were the important ones. These decisions, which were adopted through a process of intense ideological and political struggle carried all the way through three months, are very much important in our party history.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Barburam Bhattarai vice Chairman of Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), was on Sunday elected Nepal’s 35th prime minister. The 57-year-old former finance minister defeated his Nepali Congress rival Ram Chandra Poudel by a margin of 105 votes.

Bhattarai secured support of 340 members of the 594-member parliament.

“Even though the next government would be formed through majority but the door for consensus (to conclude the tasks of peace and constitution drafting) would remain open,” Bhattarai told parliament before the election.

With this victory, Maoists return back to power after a gap of 27 months. The previous Maoist government led by party chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda had resigned in May 2009.

Despite being the dominant partner in the previous coalition, Maoists had agreed to let Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) chairman Jhalanath Khanal lead the government.

Bhattarai’s victory became certain prior to voting as United Democratic Madeshi Forum, the conglomeration of five Madhesi parties with 71 seats, announced its support to the Maoist leader.

Leaders of UDMF decided on extending support after Maoists agreed to a four point deal that included details on integration and rehabilitation of former Maoist combatants and making Nepal Army more inclusive.

On the other hand, Poudel failed to reach the magic figure of 298 votes despite support of CPN (UML). He had suffered 16 successive defeats in the previous PM election as well.

Bhattarai’s election follows resignation of his predecessor Jhalanath Khanal on August 15 to make way for a national consensus government. But since parties failed to arrive at consensus on government formation, the prime minister was elected through majority vote in parliament.

An alumnus of Delhi School of Planning and Architecture and Jawaharlal Nehru University, election of the farmer’s son from Gorkha to the top post is expected to speed up the stalled peace and constitution drafting processes.

Since election to the Constituent Assembly in 2008 Nepal has witnessed three governments, but the two important tasks that were to be completed within two years are nowhere near completion.

Another deadline for both tasks ends on August 31. There is a proposal to amend the interim constitution one more time and extend the Constituent Assembly’s tenure by three more months.

Bhattarai would have to bridge consensus among all parties including Nepali Congress and CPN (UML) to conclude the peace process and give the country’s its new statute within that period.

Improving his party’s equation with India which soured due to Maoist chief Prachanda’s remarks targeting the southern neighbour as Nepal’s principal enemy would be another crucial task.

Though India rebuffed Prachanda’s subsequent attempts at reconciliation, Bhattarai who has more contacts with the political leadership in New Delhi could succeed on this front

Monday, August 22, 2011

Democracy and Class Struggle publishes this paper of Comrade Kevin "Rashid" Johnson because a lot of the message in this article is relevant to the struggle in Britain in 2011. The question of a Vanguard Party and its engagement with the Lumpen Proletariat is addressed in this article,these are key questions in the current Uprising in Britain in 2011.

Introduction

In this paper, we outline the political and ideological line of the New Afrikan Black Panther Party – Prison Chapter. The NABPP-PC, an all Afrikan people’s revolutionary party, proposes through its work and example to spread its line to the general NABPP on the outside, and to all revolutionary-minded New Afrikans, and Ultimately to expand the Party into a broad international vanguard of all Afrikan people the world over. We are in full accord with the analysis set forward in ‘The Panther and the Elephant,” which this paper intends to further illuminate..

The Vanguard Party

As a vehicle for coordinating masses of people for action, organization is necessary. Planning is necessary, and so is assigning roles and tasks to those most capable of performing them, and holding them accountable for performing their assigned tasks completely and to the best of their abilities. Coordinating the activities of the active forces of the Afrikan Nation in America towards the achievement of full democracy and national liberation requires a genuine vanguard party based among the masses. No revolutionary or genuine national independence struggle has ever succeeded without a party to organize and coordinate the energy of the struggling people into focused result-oriented action.

“From the People to the People” is the Mass line – the opposite of top-down organizations. The NABPP-PC practices and promotes the Mass line. In applying this, the Party workers must go among the People, and, by living with them and struggling along side them, experience and learn their needs, ideas and interests. The Party then – applying the principles of Historical and Dialectical Materialism – returns the People’s unorganized ideas to them in a comprehensive form, coordinating their collective actions, resources and abilities around their needs and thereby aids and organizes them in solving their own problems.

As a revolutionary vanguard party, the NABPP-PC realizes that strategic or tactical inflexibility runs counter to the organic nature of a mass-based leading party. Such a party must operate within the limits of existing concrete conditions as they develop and change, and it cannot attempt to drive people to stick stubbornly and mechanically to methods of struggle which actual conditions do not support or allow. It has been by failing to exercise flexibility and initiative and practicing “commandism” that many would-be revolutionary movements in the past have failed and have given vanguard parties a bad name.

Our strategic and tactical decision-making process is that of Democratic Centralism, which does not contradict applying the Mass Line. Nor does it go against maintaining flexibility and initiative and being creative in our political work. Democratic Centralism is the method by which our Party determines, through intense internal discussion, debate, and then majority agreement, the Party’s overall strategic and tactical line. The basic principle is to raise criticisms and ideas up and to implement down. Once a strategy and tactical approach is decided, the lower bodies of the Party can then exercise a great deal of initiative and creativity in applying the line in practice, adapting to the particularities of local conditions.

At the heart of any democratic process is the need and right to be informed of all issues relevant to making accurate analysis and correct decisions. Therefore, Party cadre must never stop learning, (and teaching the People), and must never hold stubbornly to views not supported by the ongoing experience of the Party. Our sources of learning are our people’s life experience, books, and especially ourpractice. We must never stop learning.

Essential to democratic practice is criticism and self-criticism. All Party members must feel free to criticize other Party members and leaders, line and practice within the context of internal Democratic Centralism. The Party must also be open to listening to the criticisms of the masses. If what is unproductive or harmful cannot be criticized, then how can what is productive and good be determined?

The Party will exercise greater or lesser degrees of centralism, depending upon the freedom and necessity of the struggle in a given time and place. For example, security considerations may restrict the ability to hold discussions and force the leadership to assume more authoritative methods at times, restricting certain information, to protect the cadre or the Party as a whole. But overall, our goal is to promote democracy and collective decision making. In all cases, we must adjust and adapt new, varied and creative tactics and approaches to maintain the initiative in our work and avoid becoming predictable and thus susceptible to being out manoeuvred and defeated.

Classes and Class Struggle

On the point of classes and class struggle, we adopt the analysis presented in ‘The Panther and the Elephant,” we also add in relation to the lumpen Proletariat that the NABPP-PC, as its name implies, is an autonomous chapter of the NABPP centered within the prisons. The vast majority of prisoners in the U.S. are proletarians, but many come from a lumpen background, and all are influenced by this perspective in the context of prison culture. The lumpen class overlaps with the proletariat, (drifts in and out of employment), but maintains an outlook that opposes a proletarian class outlook. The lumpen’s confused and backward values stem from its position of preying upon others and general ignorance, which can be corrected through education and struggle, and through guided practice in a mass organization like the Black Brigade. A minimum condition for the acceptance of lumpen class militants into the Party must be a period of re-education and practice inside a Party-affiliated mass organization like the Black Brigade, where we can observe their practice and they can remold their class outlook and develop into a full-time, all-the- way revolutionary.

Contradictions in Proletarian Versus Lumpen Perspectives

Many people when presented with the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist idea that that only the proletariat can lead in making all-the-way revolutionary class struggle question why this is, and why some other class, (without changing its class perspective), cannot lead such a struggle. One reason is because the proletariat is the only class that has no real stake in preserving the class relations of the capitalist system, but has everything to gain in taking control over the social wealth it has itself created by its labor and the tools it uses to create it. Another reason is that the proletariat, (in contrast to the lumpen), has the conditioning in patient work, social unity and cooperation necessary to wage the protracted class struggle required to abolish all exploitation and oppression. Basically, it is our social practice that determines how we think and not how we think that determines our social practice.

The proletariat has a strong sense of family commitment and unity and a sense of respect for and commitment to the community. These values grow out of the routine of going to work each day in the social environment of the workplace to provide for the needs of one’s family, and not only maintaining employment but also engaging in domestic labor in the home, rearing· children, and taking part in the social life of the community. This requires and instils stability, discipline and responsibility as well as cooperation with one’s peers.

The class conscious worker can be of two sorts, the militant and the revolutionary. The militant worker takes the sense of commitment beyond the family into the workplace and will stand up to the bosses for workers’ rights, even to the extent of jeopardizing one’s employment, freedom and safety by participating in strikes and job actions. The revolutionary worker takes the sense of commitment even farther and challenges the oppressive social order to change the social relations for all and put an end to class exploitation and oppression once and for all. The revolutionary is inspired by a great love for the people and sense of duty to the masses and to future generations.
The revolutionary worker doesn’t swagger or boast and has little sense of ego. He or she is serious-minded and self-disciplined. The revolutionary knows that like a strike, the revolutionary struggle must be a united mass struggle, and that it will take quite some time to succeed. Each contribution is important, and the end result is to benefit the overall society. In contrast to the proletarian’s practice and outlook, the lumpen schemes and preys upon others to acquire survival needs and personal wealth, which renders him or her indifferent to the effects visited upon others and society as a whole.

The lumpen mentality mirrors – on a smaller scale and with less sophistication – that of the big gangsters (the monopoly capitalists), and amounts to a ruthless drive for immediate self-gratification, power, control and “respect,” (even though their lifestyle is anything but respectable), through deception, corruption, violence and intimidation of others. These tendencies are what lies behind certain lumpen aspiring to be perceived as “crazy” and unpredictably violent.

Translated into the revolutionary movement, the lumpen tendency has some thinking that militant swaggering, posturing, and ”talking shit,” is acceptable behavior for revolutionaries, which is very wrong and demonstrates political immaturity and lack of a true proletarian outlook. Such posturing leads to actions of a reactionary, adventurist and provocateur nature, that invites enemy attack that the movement is unprepared to deal with and alienates the masses. Comrade Sundiata Acoli, (a member of the old BPP and BLA), observed that just such lumpen tendencies contributed to the downfall of the old BPP and the general Black Liberation Movement in America. (See Sundiata Acoli, ” A Brief History of the Black Panther Party and its place in the Black Liberation Movement.” (1985), which is posted on the internet and was recently reprinted in the Summer Issue of Leviathan, the newsletter of the Black Brigade).

Also, because they are conditioned to seek immediate and short term benefits in their daily practice, the lumpen generally lack the resolve to pursue and stick with tasks that require hard work and patience. We in the NBPP-PC feel that a major factor that led to the old BPP’s destruction was the failure to raise many of the Party’s members’ world view to that of the revolutionary proletariat and allowing the Party and its leadership to become saturated in lumpen ideology, values and practice.
The motives behind revolutionary violence are fundamentally different from the reactionary violence of the lumpen, who model their violence after that of the big gangsters. Revolutionary violence is rooted in the collective resistance of the masses organized against the violence of the big gangster bourgeoisie system of repression and exploitation. History is made by the collective masses, with the genuine revolutionary vanguard serving to raise their consciousness and organize their force into collective revolutionary struggle. Correct thinking is the catalyst. just as intelligence draws order out of chaos – out of the chaos of noise music, and out of chaos of images and color – art.

Raising the Lumpen Outlook to a Revolutionary Proletarian Outlook

To serve in the capacity of a truly revolutionary vanguard, the Party must consist of committed, disciplined people who have the outlook of truly revolutionary workers; people who are committed to work every day in a patient and disciplined way until the conditions for a revolutionary seizure of power by the masses arise. Without remolding their class outlook, the lumpen will pursue ultra-leftist militant acts of exhibitionism and spew forth “Off the Pig!” rhetoric, and when this provokes repression from the Establishment, they will flip-flop to right opportunism, tum rat and become enemy agents, or run for cover. Lacking correct analysis, self-discipline and patience, they will vacillate left to right, and they will confuse one stage of the struggle for another and try to skip the stages that require hard work and tenacity.

These elements disdain to apply the Mass Line, ignore the Democratic Centralism of the Party, fear Criticism and Self-Criticism and lean towards individualism and “commandism,” indulging in personal attacks and attempts at intimidation and coercion of other Party members and the masses through threats and force. Their unremolded lumpen ideology is a corrosive to building Party unity and maintaining discipline, and it makes them easy prey for recruitment by the enemy. The lumpen are capable of “the most heroic deeds and the most exalted sacrifices, or of the basest banditry and dirtiest corruption.”

A large part of our work in NBPP-PC is to properly educate and reorient the lumpen through ideological and political training and bringing as many of them who are capable of “the most heroic deeds and the most exalted sacrifices” into the active work of the struggle as possible, and thereby expand the Party while struggling against opportunism, both of the “left” and right varieties. We know that in this work, the enemy will unceasingly attempt to infiltrate its agents of repression and seek out the weak links among us to turn them into their snitches and agent-provocateurs, and we must be vigilant to guard against this, without becoming paranoid; In the struggle, “ideological and political line determines everything,” and we must rely on ideological and political training and commitment to practicing the Mass Line, Criticism and Self-Criticism and the Democratic Centralist method of determining what should be done and how to do it.

We realize that the lumpen are our brothers and sisters, and we do not desire to make war on them, rather we look upon their wrong ideas and lack of understanding as loads upon their backs, and we endeavor to help them cast them off. “Cure the sickness to save the patient,” is our goal. However, we are not naive idealists, and we realize that there are those who lack the moral fiber and will to change or courage for the struggle. Some people have no integrity or loyalty, and those who, after struggle, persist in wrong ways must be purged from the ranks of the people’s movement.

Before someone is recruited into the Party, they must be tested and prove themselves in the people’s mass organizations, like the Black Brigade. They must show proof of both good character and advanced understanding of what needs to be done. Words are cheap. Practice is the measure of commitment and the way consciousness develops.

Our goal is to be more than a prison organization. The struggle of our New Afrikan and Afrikan people worldwide cries out for vanguard leadership. With the Black proletariat concentrated in America and Europe and our peasantry concentrated in Afrika, we have an internationalist duty to provide revolutionary proletarian leadership and to set an inspiring example. Our struggle against imperialism and neo-colonialism is a class struggle of international dimensions. We have much to learn and much to do. We must become good at learning and resolute in struggle.

Democracy and Class Struggle is pleased to publish the thoughts of Comrade Kissoon on the Uprising in Britain.

The riots in England recently have shocked the country; and quite rightly; for they are a warning of what will come. All the drivel about one happy country united in celebration over the royal wedding has been blasted away.

The slaying of Mark Duggan by the shot of a policeman in Tottenham was the spark, the riots were the fire. The light from the fire revealed the society in a somewhat unusual light; a snapshot of Britain from a strange angle sent around the world. Let me explain:

1) Riots and looting are not supposed to happen in first world countries. Riots are only supposed to take place in third world countries. Riots in the UK and France signal that first world societies are changing toward something more traditional, more akin to the 19th century ‘Victorian’ social model, more akin to societies in the third world. That is: an openly class divided society, with educated wealthy elite, and an uneducated poor majority.

2) For instance, in most third world countries, as in pre-WW2 Britain, higher education is only for the wealthy and the elite; it is not for all. In the New Britain, it seems higher education will again be just for the wealthy and the elite. The post-war European ‘social democratic model’ is collapsing and, it seems, we are reverting to an earlier social model; this is the meaning of ‘the cuts’; viewed from another angle, it is the loss of certain ‘first world privileges’.

3) It is getting somewhat unbelievable that we really live in a democracy and that voting for one party or another will make much difference. I will not seek to prove this, but only say that is what people feel. No silly gimmicks such as online voting will make any difference, when all the parties are, at bottom, the same. There is no popular confidence in the ‘democracy’ the UK is exporting around the world at gunpoint.

4) A creeping authoritarianism has overtaken the country; we seem to be subconsciously sliding into a particularly British and peculiarly technological kind of police state (Alan Moore’s ‘V for Vendetta’ comic book captures this perfectly). I do not say we are there yet, but to get to a police state from a ‘normal’ liberal democratic state is not a quick affair. It takes a number of steps -let us say seven steps-and we are perhaps on the third step.

5) Consider: In Cardiff, the Anarchist group was infiltrated by an undercover policeman; a sinister government agency called ‘Prevent’ spies on refugee and Muslim communities; every mile of London is under 24/7 CCTV surveillance; armed police wander around London with dogs ready to ‘stop and search’ anyone who may look suspicious, a disproportionate number of whom are young black men. In the university, lecturers and academic staff are supposed to be on the lookout for ‘extremists’; the Metropolitan police is asking people to report Anarchists to the police. There are even plans for the police to use unmanned ‘drone’ spy planes, as used in Afghanistan, over mainland Britain. And who knows what kinds of cyber spying takes place? Everything is already set up for a police state; just a few more steps...

6) These steps have been justified by the threat of terrorism. The reverse side of unpopular foreign wars is the popular loss of civil liberties. A wise man said: “A nation that oppresses another is itself not free.”

7) The society preaches consumerism and the acquisition of material goods as the highest good, and is shocked when some people try to acquire those goods without paying for them. The people are drenched in consumerist propaganda from an extremely early age, young children know advertising jingles before they even know the alphabet or the times table.

8) It is not just poverty and lack of opportunity that cause riots, but there is something about life in advanced capitalist countries that makes people angry and aggressive even if they have money and opportunity. It is not just poverty but poverty in the midst of so much wealth and so nearby.

9) Since Thatcher, the society has been depoliticised and atomised to an alarming degree. People are not taught to think politically; there is no sense of community. This is the difference between the UK and other European societies such as Greece, where everyone seems intensely political. So we should not be surprised that a revolt of the young will have no political ideology. However, without a coherent political ideology, without any clear demands, the rioters are not able to state why they rioted and what they want; politicians can interpret the riots in ways that suit their interests. The interpretation of the riots, what they mean for the country, is therefore also a struggle of conflicting interpretations made by left and right wing commentators and pundits, because the rioters themselves have not been able to articulate coherent demands.

10) The now open class divisions in society should allow the radical left to widen its sphere of influence and become a real force in British politics. But only if it can get its act together.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

As we approach the 40th anniversary of the execution of Black Panther leader George Jackson on August 21, 1971, this video produced from the Freedom Archives of San Francisco provides valuable memories of that historic time, which continue to resonate in the struggles today.

We dedicate this video to the comrades of The Pan-Afrikan Voice and the George Jackson Socialist League in Britain

After decades of political betrayal by the Labour Party, and the blatant attacks on the working class by the Tories (the British Conservative Party), there has emerged an angry and bitter class that has rocked what was once the center of a global empire: London.

Fires have erupted In Birmingham, Croydon, Bristol, Liverpool and Tottenham at last count, sparked by thevery same fuse that lit the explosions of the 1960s, and 1990s: police violence-this time against a 29-year old father of four, Mark Duggan.

But while this cop violence may prove a spark, that doesn't mean It was the reason. Years of cutbacks, joblessness, slashed educational opportunities and plain old political mean-splritedness
aimed at the poor and the dispossessed, immigrants and the like, left sour tastes In the minds of many. Especially In the midst of a city that became the financial center of Europe, who were living a life of excess and plenty.

Predictably, pols bum-rushed the mike and spat out words that could've echoed their American cousins in power in the '60s, or after the Rodney King police-beating acquittal, which burned Southern California in 1992.

"They're just criminals--this isn't about social conditions!
"
"These people are just thugs--they're thieves--that's all!" (Last time I checked, thieves don't usually light fires where they steal.)

Fires are attempts to destroy: period.

The late Rev. Dr. Martin L. King, Jr. said, during the tumult of the '60s: "A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard."

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Democracy and Class Struggle is pleased to publish this contribution from Comrade Emma Lewis from Brixton.The Black List refused to publish this article because of it's criticism of Black MP's.

The uprising which began on the 6th August represents the rage of the poor against decades of police violence/racism, unemployment, and poverty.

Tottenham has a long history of police killings (Mrs. Aseta Simms, Colin Roach, Mrs. Cynthia Jarrett, Joy Gardener) and struggle against police violence.

On Thursday August 4th, Mark Duggan, a 29 year old father of three was shot by the police. Normally when someone has been killed, the police inform the family first, before the name is made public. This did not happen in this case. On Saturday 6th August the family of Mark Duggan and 300 community members organized a one hour vigil outside the Police station asking for answers to their questions re his death. The vigil started at 5pm. At 9pm the people decided to end the vigil as no police officer was willing to speak to the family. While the crowd dispersed, the police attacked a 16 year old girl, smashed her with riot shields and batons. It was in response to this brutal and savage attack on this young girl, that the young men started to stone police cars and then to torch them.

We now know that Mark’s killing was part of a planned operation “Operation Trident” which is directed at “gun crime” in the Black community, and was carried out by CO19, a specialist firearms unit.
So far we have had different stories from the police about the shooting. The IPCC, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, ( known in the Black community as the ‘Independent Police Cover up Commission’) which is NOT Independent, now claims that “we may have inadvertently given misleading information to journalists” One story they gave was that there was an “exchange of fire” They have now admitted that this was not true. The police have no historical record of providing reliable information.

Lies change but the truth remains consistent.

For well over forty years now, the number of deaths in police custody has averaged one a week. Yet no police officer has been found guilty of murder or has even been charged.

Although the spark for the uprising on the 6th was the murder of Mark Duggan, and the police assault on the 16 year old girl, it is the government’s social and economic policies that led to this explosion of violence. It has been brewing for some time. The regime now seeks to shift the blame elsewhere.

Totttenham has the highest level of unemployment in London. Half the borough's children live in poverty. Youth project funding has been slashed by 75% this year, eight of the borough's 13 youth clubs have shut.

There were uprisings here, (as well as in other communities) in 1981 and in 1985. Many people who work, receive such miserly wages that they still have to claim benefits from the State in order to pay their rents. So we as taxpayers are actually subsidizing these criminal employers.

The young people who took to the streets, have grown up in a society where corruption is rampant and where criminality gets rewarded. They have seen bankers blatantly stealing the nation’s wealth, billions of pounds have been looted from public funds yet they continue to pay themselves hefty bonuses despite the “debt crisis” and they get away with it. These young people have seen MPs steal our money through fraudulent “expenses” claims and luxury lifestyles. Hospitals and other necessary services are starved of funding, and people die, this is also violence for which the regime is responsible.

No body is prosecuting the bankers for robbing us, or the politicians, Press and Police for corruption.

How can stealing a pair of trainers equate with the billions of pounds stolen by the bankers and politicians, (against whom no charges have been brought) yet these youngsters are being carted off to prison with sentences being meted out that do not reflect the crimes.

The courts have launched an onslaught against poor, working class people in the aftermath of the riots that swept British cities.

Police have arrested more than 2,000 people—and 1,000 have been charged so far. Courts up and down Britain dished out more rushed revenge than "swift justice".

A 23-year old electrical engineering student from south London, Nicholas Robinson, got the harshest sentence so far. He was jailed for six months for taking £3.50 worth of bottled water from Lidl.

And Greater Manchester police sparked outrage when they boasted about one case on Twitter. The cops wrote, "Mum-of-two, not involved in disorder, jailed for FIVE months for accepting shorts looted from shop. There are no excuses!"

Ursula Nevin did not even "loot" the shorts—she just accepted them as a gift from her flatmate. Her children are aged one and five.

But these extraordinary cases are just two among hundreds.

Another mother-of-two, Tracy O'Leary, took home a bag of clothes she found under a bush in a park.

Tracy, who works as a carer at a school for children with severe learning difficulties in east London, was jailed for 16 weeks for receiving stolen goods. Judge Williamson told her "You jolly well ought to have known better".

In Manchester, police accosted Jason Ulett, aged 38. They accused him of being a looter because he was wearing dark hooded clothing and riding a bike past a vandalised shop. He was jailed for ten weeks for struggling with and swearing at the officers—and told he should have been cycling away from the violence.

Meanwhile 50-year old Peter Ellwood was hauled before a Manchester court for shouting abuse at volunteers sweeping up after the riots. He was conditionally discharged for 12 months.

Those accused of actually stealing anything faced even tougher judgments.

Shonola Smith, 22, sobbed as she and her sister Alicia were jailed for six months. They were found inside an Argos in Croydon, and Shonola had ten packets of chewing gum on her. She was set to start university next month.

Violin

And 19-year old Stefan Hoyle was caught with a stolen violin in the aftermath of the looting in Manchester. He was sentenced to four months in a young offender's institution for theft. He told police he "had always wanted" to learn the instrument.

Courts ran overnight and held unprecedented Sunday sittings. There was chaos at Westminster magistrates court as lawyers turned up at a few minutes’ notice with no idea who they were representing.

District judge Tim Devas told one man found guilty of obstructing police in Nottingham: "Don't you feel ashamed that you are now counted among the hundreds of yobbos arrested and now considered as scum by the public?"

Monday, August 15, 2011

This article was published a few days ago 3000 people have now been arrested. Democracy and Class Struggle

Five people are dead, more than one thousand in jail and Reuters report that Gaddafi has recognized the Tottenham rioters as the legitimate government of Britain. What the hell is going on?

At the eye of this storm lies the body of Mark Duggan, murdered by the metropolitan police. In the past the cops have been careful to leave what they presumably fell is a “respectful” length of time between political and racial murders, at least so the last can drop out of memory, but the point blank shooting of this young man has come up straight between the beating to death of Ian Tomlinson, so that nicety even, seems of another time.

The events in Tottenham seem to have escalated very quickly. A crowd of residents assembled outside the police station to protest his death, when a number of police officers fell on one young protester (some reports said a sixteen year old girl) beating and arresting her.

The rightwing press and the middle classes are as ever hoping to present this as an unpredictable carnival of the so-called underclass. There only contact with council estates and the poor being through the Hogarthian moralism of Shameless, they chalk up the three days of violence and looting to bad parenting and a lack of “respect”, noticeably absenting themselves from any comparison between this narrative and the Bullingdon escapades of certain current front bench yahoos.

This explanation will not do. Firstly, let’s say people who are poor and Black or Asian (or white in Salford) just like a good ruck. Fine. Then why riot now? The problem with this account is that it does not account for why the riots took place when and how they did. The fact of the matter is that the prime causal factor of all this rioting has been the shooting of Mark Duggan and this should not be forgotten. His poor family, have since been put through, not only his murder, but the continuing defamation of his name in the national press. First he was shooting at police (turns out he wasn’t according to their own sources), then he was on his way to kill someone (no evidence) then his uncle is supposed to have been a gangster (so what?). I am sure, I am not the only one who notices the ridiculous dance follows the same footfalls as that of de Menezes. First he had jumped over the turnstyle (but he hadn’t) then he was wearing a suspiciously padded jacket (only it was denim). In that case it turned out that a combination of murderous incompetence and the racist inability to tell two Brown people apart had lead to the mans life being taken, so forgive me if I jump to conclusions on this one.

The petrol that was lit by the spark of Duggan’s death need not have been allowed to stand out side. The Lawrence inquiry specifically called for an end to stop and search, as the sharpest edge of Police racism. This power has effectively been reintroduced under the terrorism act. It is not coincidental that no serious disturbance occurred in West Yorkshire; after the Bradford Riots of 2001 the WY Police have been very wary about certain aspects of community relations, and a lack of obviously racist stop and search methods, I am sure, contributed to the peace of this area.

Indeed, if we look at all the different areas where the riots happened we see that they seem to be as a result of quite disparate social phenomena. In Tottenham the whole of the rioting seems to have had a very anti Police dimension, and this seems to have been replicated in a lot of predominantly African Caribbean neighborhoods in London. In the texts and tweets that flew about, a real class hatred towards the police is apparent; “See a brother Salut, see a fed shoot” (sic) . Two things need pointing about this. First that in the immediate rioting around London the idea of looting seemed connected to fighting the police, and the farther one gets from the eye of this storm, the less this seems to be the case. Secondly, that no cops got killed. Contrary to the racist and anti working class (never has the word “chav” been thrown around with more bile or frequency) stereotypes that have paralyzed the bourgeois press, this is not a mob of “feral”, “wild” children intent on death and theft. They are poor young men and women sick of being targeted by police, benefits cuts, no prospects. They have no other language.

The fact that mainstream politics has absolutely no answer to the problems of these young people was made apparent in the most allegedly “non political” events of the past few days. The reports from Salford, for instance, suggest that most of the unrest was down to looting, rather than anything else. Karl Marx’s much maligned view of religion, not only as the opium of the people, but as the language through which (lacking anyother) express their discontent is reborn through its perspicuity; a generation brought up o with Fiddy as their prophet and AirMax 95s as their Black Stone will surely express their anger and discontent in precisely these terms.

What is essentially a literal act of redistribution of wealth takes here a particularly neo-Thatcherite, even “Big Society” form. There is no Left, no trade union, hell not even a reformist social democratic party that speaks to young disenfranchised workers, so poor people ape the actions of their masters; I am denied the good things of life, so I will take them by myself, for myself.

The ultimate cause of these riots is the lack of any progressive political route for young working class people. There is nothing wrong with anger, even hatred, but it needs direction. This passage a’lacte that we witnessed will ulitmately make things worse for those people and communities caught up with it. Without a plan anger gives you an ulcer; without outward facing discipline it is nothing but masturbatory self harm.

This lack of political direction is even more apparent in the racist chants of so-called “community defense” groups who grew up in South East London, for instance. These people who betrayed the influence of the EDL did much more than any leftist group to influence the turn of events. As the gap between the rich and poor continues to grow, better off sections of the working and lower middle classes may well slowly come to see where their interests lie, but without a plan from left and progressive people to win them over, time and again the post-Fascists of the EDL milieu will come off tops. After all the Daily Mail does their Chav-hating and paki-bashing for them, we need our own propaganda.

As Martin Luther King said; “A riot is the language of the unheard”. I think he is exactly right. We heard the infantile self obsession that passes for politics reflected on the streets this week. If you want something, damn anyone that stands in your way and take it, for yourself. There’s no such thing as a tax raise on the richest two percent, so fighting for a better life just sounds like taking a pair of shoes or a bigger TV. The idea that one might not want to spend every evening gentuflecting before the cold LED throb of a TV of whatever size was missing entirely from a lot of the disturbances, but then again, people do not come onto the streets with ideas fully formed. I imagine, in the early spring, Egyptians would have thought that enough of a payraise for a new telly would have been a good result. Not true any longer.

So in the midst of the competitive condemnation and calls for various prison door keys, there is a message from the storm in our streets. (A recent poll of Guardian readers found that 60% of these San Pellegrino drinkers supported the maximum sentence for someone convicted of stealing a bottle of water from Lidel). The thing is the racism, poverty, lack of jobs, cuts to benefits and overtly political policing that caused this resentment are still there. A critical, disciplined and intelligent movement must find a way to build amongst our communities, or we will not be in a position to provide any shape to peoples anger.

A storm is coming, prepare its path; take the old and rotten to the sea shore and get ready to build again.

Friday, August 12, 2011

This is what ‘robust’ policing looks like Posted by Really Fit
The video shows a unit of Manchester riot police baton, punch and kick three youths on push bikes. The police carrying on kicking and punching them even when they are on the ground. Is this the sort of 'robust' policing that David Cameron and the politicians of all parties have been clamouring for?

Thursday, August 11, 2011

The interesting thing is that nobody knows what's happening. When these same events takes place abroad, journalists and politicians in Britain can immediately identify the causes.Therefore,all we're hearing from the people in charge here and their media, is their half baked ideas.
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I think it would be a sad day in Britain if talks of using water cannon and bringing in the army were to be seriously considered. Look at other parts of the world where there measures have been implement by desperate regimes and see if people just rolled over.
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David Lammy was so incensed, almost at the point of having an heart attack, because his (white or apolitical black) constituents told him that "what's going on is a disgrace".

Diane Abbott thinks some kind of "curfew should be imposed to prevent people from leaving their homes".

The Home secretary Theresa May think that what's taking place is "pure criminality". Hopefully she'll recognise criminality when so called and failing businesses begin to make fraudulent insurance claims.

Do you recall hearing any of the above saying their colleagues who fraudulently claimed monies from the public purse or the bankers who paid themselves excessive bonuses;The supermarket raking it in and paying their staff minimum wages,the utilities who make billions in profits and continuing to hike up prices are criminals?

The killing of Mark Duggan would appear to be the straw that broke the camel's back. So no amount of getting his family to condemn the reactions of people is going to intimidate protesters.

We've seen police excess rewarded and never punished.There is the case of the Hackney Man leaving the pub with a chair leg in a bag being shot by the police; There is the murder of an innocent man murdered at Stockwell tube station; The murder of the paper seller in the city and now Mark Duggan.

In each of those cases the police attempt to lie their way out of their illegal actions. Consequently costing the taxpayers millions of pounds for some meaningless enquiry-report which always let the police off and the eminent judge richer.

David Cameron was one of the MPs, who made immodest claims for his Kitchen refurbish. The same person who want to repay the deficit quickly though painful and telling us that "we're all in it together".

Cameron is not loosing his job, his family and friends are not affected by the cuts he is spearheading. When the electricity, gas prices and transport cost increases he and his millionaire cabinet colleagues won't even notice.

People are concerned about not having any meaningful say, no representation and while they have no future, they see the privilege others milking the state - paying for nothing and having a way of claiming for everything.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

The current rebellion in England was triggered by the Metropolitan police execution of Mark Duggan in Tottenham on 4th August 2011.

However the Metropolitan police shoot first ask questions later goes back years to the execution of Charles de Menendez on the London Underground.

The killing of Ian Tomlinson, the death on arrest of Smiley Culture,with the execution of Mark Duggan acting as the final straw in a line of recent police killings.

Who are the participants ?

The participants in the rebellion are the inner city youth from the deprived boroughs which have been at the receiving end of the savage Con Dem Government cuts.Youth services in the borough that Tottenham is in have been cut by 70 per cent.

The combination of government cuts and aggressive policing has led to this social explosion.

What role is the Left Playing ?

The movement is largely spontaneous with some organised Anarchist elements, especially skilled in utilising new communications technologies like blackberry messenging.

The movement has the "faceless" character of many European,North African and Middle East protests to defend key organisers.

The traditional left has been active in the anti cuts campaign and the March 26th and June 30th mobilisations and strikes.

However the traditional left are tailing and not leading the current protests.

The social democrats from the deprived inner London boroughs like David Lamy and Diane Abbott are condemning the uprisings and even calling for curfews.

Manchester and Salford and Liverpool were the scenes of further rebellion has 16,000 police were put on the streets of London.

The government response is in line with their ideology with more planned repression - aggressive policing and cuts to youth services.

The Peoples Movement must combat this repression with exposure of aggressive policing and the devastating effects of the cuts on communities.

This Con Dem Government has lost is sell by date - it is time to finish it off.In reply to the Daily Express who call for clearing the "scum" off the streets Democracy and Class Struggle call for clearing the scum from the government.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

The bullet the police claim hit one of their men's radios was of police issue and not from Mark Duggan's gun.

This is already revealed by police IPCC investigation.

This makes the call for an independent investigation into this police execution of Mark Duggan even more important.

Contrary to the nonsense in the right wing media in the UK it was "robust" aggressive policing that shoot first and asks questions later policy of the metropolitan police that killed Mark Duggan.

The Daily Mail is calling for more aggressive policing and denying that the 70 per cent cut back in youth services in Tottenham is relevant to the current social explosion.Littlejohn in the Mail has a theory of violent shopping and not aggressive policing or government cut in EMA and youth services has the basis for the current social explosion.

This right wing nonsense must be combated with cool reason and facts- this Con Dem government like Littlejohn in the Daily Mail have lost contact with reality.

The Youth in rebellion have had the reality of cuts and aggressive policing in their face. Unlike the Daily Mail and Littlejohn who are removed from this daily grind people know the truth in their life and hence the social explosion we are witnessing today.

The March 26th Movement supports those protestors in Tottenham demanding an independent enquiry not a IPCC inquiry into the machine gunning of Mark Duggan.

The aggressive police tactics against the demonstrators demanding such an enquiry, especially the police attack on the 16 year old girl protestor is condemned by the March 26th Movement.What have the police to hide about the gunning down of Mark Duggan ?

The mass media in its hysteria against the social explosion caused by the aggressive policing in Tottenham have called for "robust" policing this is fuel that will burn the fire of revolt.

Robust policing means more deaths like that of Ian Tomlinson and Mark Duggan.

The cutting of Youth services funding in Tottenham by 70 per cent has part of the austerity drive of the Con Dem Government adds more fuel to the Tottenham fire.

Monday, August 8, 2011

Peckham and Lewisham in South London have seen renewed protests and vehicles including a double decker bus have been set alight in Peckham.Stop and search activities in Hackney in North London by the police have reignited protests there.A group of people have occupied the Hackney Empire Theatre.

There are also reports of protests in Birmingham and confrontations with the police.

The pressure from the Con-Dem cuts and the robust i.e aggressive policing is igniting the dry tinder of rebellion

The protest organised against the Police machine gun killing of a father of six Mark Duggan in a Taxi by the Metropolitan Police in Tottenham exploded when Police adopted aggressive tactics against the protestors in particular a 16 year old girl.

Two police cars, a bus and ­several shops were attacked and set ablaze on Saturday night as Tottenham expolded following a protest demanding justice over a fatal police shooting.

Officers on horseback and others in riot gear clashed with hundreds of protestors armed with makeshift missiles in the centre of Tottenham after Mark Duggan, 29, a father of six was killed on Thursday.

This explosion in Tottenham against the police shoot to kill policy follows on from the death of Smiley Culture and the shooting of Charles de Menendez and the death of over 300 prisoners in police custody in the last 10 years.

The recent brutal government cuts in Tottenham have seen 75 per cent cut in youth services after a cut of 41 million pounds in the council's budget have contributed to creating this social explosion.

The cuts in one of London's poorest boroughs and aggressive policing resulting in death are signs of what is to come if the current government course is continued.

Thursday, August 4, 2011

The world communist movement, which suffered a serious setback as of the counter-revolution in Russia in 1956, had to suffer another bigger setback of counter-revolution in China after Mao's demise in 1976. While arriving at the counter-revolution in China, the proletariat that exercised at one time socialism in a one third of the globe reached to such a situation at which there was no single socialist country in the world. It was an awful defeat for the world proletariat. However, the communist revolutionaries, who believe Marxism i.e. the dialectical historical materialism is a guide to action, never got disappointed but taking lessons from such defeats advanced further. The proletariat, which had been struggling against counter-revolution, succeeded to realise two important achievements in 1980s.

The initiation in 1981 of people's war by the Peruvian Communist Party led by comrade Gonzalo was the first feat on the part of proletariat in that decade. And second one was the founding of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement in 1984. Everyone is aware that the Revolutionary Communist Party of America, the RCP USA, apart from other revolutionary parties, had had an important role in organising the RIM. When there was widespread disappointment among the people due to counter-revolution these two achievements can be regarded as two important milestones in the erstwhile communist movement. It is evident that these two political events had succeeded to create all across the globe a new revolutionary wave in the erstwhile international communist movement, which was very weak from the standpoint of organisation and struggle.

No revolutionary can and should forget the ideological energy imparted to the entire party cadres and the Nepalese people in favour of new democratic revolution in Nepal by a revolutionary song, 'Our red flag is flying in Peru', sung at the time of initiation of people's war in Nepal. Nor can and should a revolutionary forget the further ideological clarity that our party acquired from discussion and exchange of experiences among various revolutionaries all across the world. For a revolutionary the internal aspect is principal, but it is also clear that the deep discussions, interactions and debates that took place with the revolutionaries in India and those within RIM played an important role for the preparation of great people's war in Nepal. Playing down it does not suit to a revolutionary.

New democratic revolution in Nepal is a part and parcel of the world proletarian revolution. All through the time of preparation, initiation and continuation of people's war our party had seriously grasped that the Nepalese revolution serves the world proletarian revolution and vice versa. It is also clear that our party had seriously grasped the proletarian internationalism at that time. In addition to a PBM, deputation of five efficient cadres to work in the RIM clarifies how seriously our party had comprehended then the importance of proletarian internationalism. Together with our party, the entire RIM had served the world proletarian revolution by accomplishing important revolutionary tasks at that time. From the viewpoint of ideology, organisation and struggle, some of the tasks that RIM had accomplished in favour of the world communist movement and the new democratic revolution in Nepal can be listed as follows and they are very good examples of proletarian internationalism.

Firstly, the synthesis of Long Live: Marxism-Leninism-Maoism, which the second expanded meeting of the RIM reached to in 1993, has had an important ideological contribution to the contemporary world communist movement. This synthesis established that the terminology, Maoism, is an introduction of a revolutionary communist in the 21st century. Today, none can become a Marxist without becoming a Maoist. A genuine revolutionary can never minimise the vital role the RIM played in this regard.

Secondly, the formation of WPRM, which was organised from among the anti-imperialist political parties, forces and individuals all across the world, is another important international work on the part of RIM. In the context of Nepal, it had issued a slogan, Imperialism: hands off Nepal. And it is clear to all that the resistant movement launched on the basis of this slogan had played a vital role to defend the Nepalese revolution. In active participation of the RIM forces, the mass demonstration of more than fifty thousand people organised by "Solidarity campaign to support the people's war in Nepal" on February 13, 2001 in Delhi not only challenged the Indian expansionism but also served Nepalese revolution by spreading revolutionary vigour among the revolutionary masses, cadres and the leaders as well in Nepal. Apart from that, this event had also been able to bring the revolutionary and anti-imperialist forces at one platform in India.

Thirdly, the role RIM played to unite the Maoist revolutionaries in India is vital. In India, armed clashes had been a regular phenomenon since long between the Maoist Communist Centre and the CPI (ML) (PW), two revolutionary communist parties of India. Although both of the central committees had regarded each other as revolutionary centres but the lower level committees had involved in armed clashes, a blemish for the Indian revolutionaries for long. The regional conference held in 1999 of the Maoist parties of South Asia called upon both the parties to stop the armed clashes unconditionally and unilaterally. Both of the centres accepted the call and then the clashes stopped. Not only that, the fraternal relation begun from this very event finally reached to party unity in September 2004. After the CPI (Maoist) was formed by way of unity between these two parties the Maoist movement in India has now become a formidable strength that is challenging the central power of India today.

Fourth, issue No. 28 of 'A World to Win', a magazine known to be ideologically close to RIM by writing a long analytical article entitled, "Look to the Himalayas: a new world is in the offing" played an vital role to make the world people know about the new democratic revolution in Nepal. During that period there was hardly an AWTW publication that did not have any material published on Nepal and Nepalese people's war. We must admire the magazine, published in six different languages, for its role to make Nepalese revolution know to the world.

Fifth, while discussing the role of RIM in the context of new democratic revolution in Nepal, one cannot forget the international mass mobilization the RIM led at the time of building martyrs road in Rolpa. The joint action of well-dressed western revolutionary youths equipped with spade and shovel in their clean hands and Nepalese people with torn-clothes and cracked-legs in the operation of constructing Martyrs road had shown an unparalleled example of proletarian internationalism. Be it destruction of the old or construction of a new, the event of martyrs road, which disseminated a message that Nepalese people are not alone but revolutionaries the world over are with them, was a shocking news for the imperialists.

Sixth, after our party headquarters was shifted to Rolpa one of the leaders of RCP, USA, who was assigned to work in RIM, reached to Rolpa on foot to discuss the problems of the world communist movement in general and the Nepalese revolution in particular. When we heard from our chairman that the RCP leader embraced him saying that "I arrived at Rolpa, the place from where the proletarian revolution in the 21st century originated", we expressed high regard to him for his unique example of the proletarian internationalism and we do now too. His high regard to the revolution in Nepal had made us feel that the task of accomplishing revolution in Nepal is upon our shoulder and so we feel now too.

However, along with unity our party had serious differences with RIM parties including RCP on various ideological and political issues and we have now too. Particularly, there are problems with the RCP on the question of understanding the dialectics between theory and practice. Among others, our party does not agree with the one-sided emphasis they lay on the development of theory. In spite of this dissension, it will be a blunder to minimise the positive role the RIM and RCP played to develop the revolution in Nepal. If someone does so, it will be simply a prejudice nothing other than that.

RIM had provided important help to our party at the time of initiation and continuation of people's war, and on the other, they had and have been struggling on various theoretical questions even today. The secret and open letters of the RCP is an example. Before our party had entered into peace process, the RCP in a letter dated October 2005 had pointed out towards a danger that the concept of democratic republic, which comrade Baburam Bhattarai had put forward in an article headed 'On a new type of state', could entrap our party in a sub-stage of bourgeois democratic republic before new democracy. The party vaguely replied that letter and the party did not organise any discussion on the theoretical questions they had raised. The ideological and political debate going on in our party on this very question at present also shows how timely they had raised that theoretical question before us.

Before our party entered into peace process, our party had had regular ideological debates with Maoist revolutionaries in India and other parties in RIM, including the RCP. It is an indisputable fact that the Nepalese revolution had attained that height with the very strength of co-operation and collectivity of the ICM. In the situation when there were no established leaders like Lenin and Mao and socialist countries like Russia and China to support the communist movement, collectivity and mutual co-operation was the correct way of working for the communist revolutionaries. But the situation is quite different today.

After our party entered into peace process, the international work among the fraternal parties has become almost nil. Yesterday, our party used to cooperate with CPI (Maoist) while today this cooperation has started with the revisionist parties like CPI (Marxist) and SUCI. Our leadership, who used to lay a lot of emphasis on the international work in the past, hardly pays attention in it today. The words like RIM and CCOMPOSA might become today the words of terror for some comrades in our party. Fraternal parties have been raising a lot of questions with our party after we entered into the peace process. Our leadership does not think necessary to reply them rather he is fleeing away from the international debate. Why this? Why our chairman remains tight-lipped when one of the PBMs of our party, who claims ideologically and politically close to chairman, accuses in our party CC meeting that the RCP leader Bob Avakian is a CIA agent and another PBM writes in an article that Bob Avakian is a renegade? Should not our chairman speak on this?

With whom does one show his or her class partisanship in the international arena is a question related to proletarian Internationalism. Without a doubt, proletariat's international class partisanship remains with proletariat and that of bourgeois with the bourgeoisie. With whom does he have his class partisanship, if not with the bourgeoisie, when a person who claims to be a leader of the proletariat accuses that a communist party leader of another country is a renegade or an enemy agent? How can a revolutionary cadre of our party see that our chairman is a proletarian internationalist leader if the later sides with those PBMs, who show their class partisanship with the bourgeois? Question is very serious.

Is he doing all this with no knowledge of what he is doing? Certainly not. Yesterday he was ideologically sound, so he was a proletarian internationalist leader, he saw the roles of RIM and RCP to be positive in favour of revolution and he also showed high regards to them. But today, he has undergone ideological deviation, so is hesitant to see his previous comrades as the comrades of today and yesterday's enemies as the enemies of today. For him, yesterday's friends seem to be like today's enemies and vice versa. Why our party chairman, who sent a central representative along with a letter of condolence on the funeral day of the revisionist renegade Jyoti Basu, did not write a single word against the killing of the spokesperson of CPI (Maoist), comrade Azad, who was killed in cold blood by the enemy? In fact, bourgeois ultra-nationalism is gradually replacing proletarian internationalism in the thinking of our chairman, this is the reason.

The problem that our party and Nepalese revolution are confronting at present is the ideological one. Our party is going deeper and deeper to the quagmire of reformism because of the ideological deviation in our party's main leadership. The vulgar evolutionism is gradually replacing Marxism and the bourgeois ultra-nationalism is slowly replacing proletarian internationalism in our party. The first step for the success of Nepalese revolution is to bring this situation to an end. And for that, the revolutionary transformation of our whole party in general and our chairman in particular is the first condition.

The objective situation is gradually becoming favourable for revolution. But, the subjective strength is very weak. Revolutionary transformation of the whole party including chairman, adoption of a correct ideological and political line, strong party unity based on it, formation of a broad united front amongst entire patriotic, progressive, leftist and revolutionary forces, a strong proletarian internationalist solidarity among Marxist-Leninist-Maoist parties internationally, formation of an anti-imperialist united front among anti-imperialist forces in the international level etc. are the preliminary conditions to build up party's subjective strength. By fulfilling these conditions the favourable objective situation can be transformed into revolution. To advance in this direction is the duty of the entire revolutionaries today.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

In this report for the interesting blog Winter Has Its End, the writers describe the current situation in Nepal

We have arrived in Nepal, the center of a radical Maoist revolution. We stood here last year, when half a million Nepalis declared their hope and determination to make a revolution. There has been a double stalemate since then, both in the constituional assembly and within the Maoist party. Every aspect of political life is marked by the need to break out, push aside roadblocks, and take a leap.

This time, our journey begins during the heart of the monsoon rains. Every night, dark clouds roll in and shower the city, mopping up Kathmandu’s thick, throat-burning pollution. When the morning comes, the clouds are gone just as quickly as they came. These rains muddy the streets and green the sharply rising hills that surround the city.

The monsoon season is also a time when tourist traffic is low in Nepal. Life generally grinds to a halt. Because the roads are muddy, travel throughout the country is very difficult.

In Kathmandu, near the center of the city, we often cross a bridge with the slogan ‘Welcome to you in land of contrasts’. It’s not clear what the contrasts are: the contrasts between Buddhist and Hindu religious cultures? The contrasts between the world’s highest mountains to the north and the hot plains to the south? The contrast between the old, crumbling caste system and a new egalitarian future yet to be realized? But if our taxi had stopped right in the middle of the bridge, and sat idling, to avoid a hazard only known to the driver, it would be an apt metaphor for the political situation.

One of the workers at our hotel, Manoj, is eager to talk politics. “This is a transitional period,” he tells me. “If we do not move forward now, if we do not use this opportunity, the chance for socialism in Nepal may be lost for 50 or 100 years.” Despite the precarious nature of the situation, he is confident of a positive outcome.

The cause of this anxiety is a political struggle within Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (UCPN[M]), the largest political party in the country. This is no ordinary ideological struggle, because it concentrates the debates of the whole society. Is the consolidation of a corrupt and conservative Indian-style parliamentary system, with capitalism at its core, the best that is possible for this time? Or is it possible to press forward on an insurrectionary road to a federated people’s republic in transition to socialism?

Between 1996 and 2006, the party waged a people’s war, that is, a guerrilla war based among peasant people at the grassroots, before driving out the hated king of Nepal. They then won their demand of a constituent assembly, a revolutionary democratic body with proportional representation of women, ethnic minorities, and oppressed castes. This body is charged with developing a new Nepal, drafting a new constitution to give that new society shape, and dissolving the old government.

Unsettled Questions

Our newly arrived reporting team has already met with a few leaders of Nepal’s revolutionary peasant movement.

One peasant leader shared with us the stories of intense debate taking place over revolutionary land reform within the country’s constituent assembly. The other parties (The UML and the Nepali Congress, the former a status quo-ist party and the latter a proponent of corrupt Indian- style capitalism) have fiercely opposed revolutionary land reform This revolutionary land reform would include confiscation of large land holdings by a wealthy upper class, distribution of land to those who work that land, and the development of radical forms of collective work among the peasants – pooling their labor to make it possible to build schools, roads, irrigation and sanitation.

The other parties have threatened to quit the peace process, with even continuing rumors of an Indonesia-style military coup [of 1965-ed.]. They have disrupted the constituent assembly process, demanded “consensus” in the constituent assembly, claimed the people’s revolutionary aspirations to be divisive, and created a stalemate. This has brought the people’s hopes for revolutionary transformation within the Constituent Assembly to a stand-still. And for this reason, he says, the people of Nepal will be ready for a new period of revolt.

August 31 is a key date, the deadline for Nepal’s parties to draft a constitution. As the date approaches, it seems less and less likely the process will be completed. People already tell us they know is it impossible. Another leader tells us that the other parties “want to take the whole Maoist party and drown them” in the “swamp” of the peace process. If that doesn’t work, he says, they may use force. After the end of August, “anything can happen,” he says.

The internal struggle over direction and goals that is commonly referred to as “line struggle” among the Maoists has become more public over the past several months. The mainstream press is wantonly fueling speculation and intrigue, commenting on the personal motives of this or that leader, and generally muddying the real political content of the situation.

We meet another young radical, Khadka, at a small eatery and share bottles of Nepali beer called Everest and a plate of spicy aloo (potatoes). “There will be big news in August,” he tells us. But what that news will be remains unknown. He speculates that perhaps the Maoist party will come to an agreement about their plans and road forward.

Or, he speculates, if they remain divided, right-wing parties may try to take advantage of the situation with a military coup d’etat, or even re-introduce the widely-hated King Gyanendra, the monarch who was stripped of his powers in 2008. And, unfortunately, we have heard support for those kinds of plans from small (but real) minority here.

Gyanendra has been reduced to an idle, semi-public figure, fodder for conservative newspaper photo-ops. His return would be disastrous for economic and social justice in Nepal. It would mean a return to open caste-violence and suppression, censorship, political suppression, and the bitter suppression of Nepal’s oppressed ethnic minorities. It would also mean an end to hopes of land reform – and the transformation of Nepal’s impoverished rural areas into spaces where equitable and sustainable agriculture can flourish.

We are shocked when Khadka tells us that he is a member of UCPN(M), but hasn’t been given a directive from the party in months. This, he says, is because the line struggle has become the main focus of the Maoists. Party websites are not being updated, and we have heard the 2011 edition of The Worker is not currently being produced.

Maoist propaganda is still everywhere, but what we see is dated. The feeling is very different from what it was during our previous trip last year when the party was clearly on the offensive and where there was a sense that active insurrectionary preparations were being made.

Nepal’s revolution is clearly at a critical cross-road over how to go forward – or, more precisely whether to go forward to a radical New Nepal.

The three primary leaders of the UCPN(M) each have their loyal partisans. When we were here last year party cadre would rarely self-identify with a specific leader of the party. Now it seems almost everyone has an alignment as part of one of the party’s factions, and in some ways it is refreshing that the people here treat these line differences openly. It is refreshing because this very real conflict is finally emerging center stage for resolution, and because so many people are openly and actively fighting for a new revolutionary leap.

The debates are deeply nuanced, with different leaders of the UCPN(M) each representing different views and roads of the society as a whole. But while the party is fractured into opposing camps, it has not actually broken into different organizations, and we have yet to hear a single person from any camp who wants to see a split. “It would be a catastrophe,” a friend from the hotel says. One Nepali Maoist has described the question of armies as a dividing line question among the Maoists, but at the same time is enthusiastic that the line struggle will soon be resolved.

Difficult as this period is, it is part of the complex process of making a revolution. It is no easy task to completely transform a nation and a society, one with deeply entrenched hierarchies of caste, ethnicity and gender. Revolutions are never linear things, but processes always beset by unforeseen contradictions, and often frustrate the predictive abilities of everyone involved.

In between the intense bursts of monsoon rains, the noise of public conversations, street vendors, incessant honking – a courtesy here –continues. So does the widespread desire for revolution. So does the longing for freedom from foreign domination, patriarchy, ethnic oppression, and caste oppression. Small hatchbacks and motorcycles still speed and swerve around one another through the streets, a chaotic traffic dance that makes US freeways seem quaint. And the whole people of Nepali are on edge, debating the future of their society, and it is hard to know as outsiders just which ways the wind is blowing.